We love our home too much....

[Chris Kennedy]

After countless hours/days/weeks......I've struggled with finding the approach that will best suit our situation/lifestyle. We have lived in our current home for the last 3 years (25 year ammor.) and we are nearly debt free besides the mortgage through aggressive budgeting and saving. The next step for us is to build an Emergency fund and then start saving up for a 5% down payment on our first Rental property (preferably a duplex). We only need 5% because we will be "owner occupying" the home. We live in Canada by the way, but I think the same 1 year rule applies. 

We originally planned to rent out our beloved house and move into one part of a newly purchased duplex, rent out the other half. I've analysed this to death by the way. We can cash flow anywhere between $400-$800 per month in a duplex, but will only cash flow $100 max from our single-family home (2 bed 2 bath). 

We don't have kids (just two kittens), and we are 30 years old. So we are flexible with living situations ("minimum comfort ability for maximum profitability"- Thanks Craig C.) 

I would like to present our latest revised plan, and I'm looking for advice or input as to whether this is a good idea or not, so here it goes:

We rent out our current home, live in one side of a duplex and rent out the other side for ONE YEAR (CRA requirement). After that first year is up, we move back to our original home, and rent out BOTH sides of the duplex to achieve maximum cash-flow. We save up for a 20% down payment (with help from using our rental cash flow and our continuing frugal lifestyle) and purchase another duplex or possibly triplex. The benefit I am seeing here is that we get into our first rental property finance with maximum Cash on Cash return (5% down payment), we get to move back in to the home/neighborhood we love so very much, we achieve better cash flow than if we were to stay living in the duplex for more than year while renting our house, and we are able to use OPM to fund our next rental property.

So what do you think? Am I over-analyzing this too much?